"Start By Getting Something--Anything"

"Shitty First Drafts" ....such a helpful essay! I feel really comforted by the fact that I am not the only one to endlessly stare at an empty, white page on my computer screen with twitching fingers and furrowed brow, and, hours later, still have no idea of where to begin becoming an author. Someone else, a professional writer no less, understands the feelings of frustration that writing can induce. Creating a piece of writing from nothing into something that inspires, instructs, declares, defines, describes, summarizes, equips, analyzes, compares, contrasts, narrates, or criticizes does not spontaneously happen for me. I thought that experts, who are much better at writing than myself, were capable of neatly writing out everything, revising a little, and then having a perfectly complete essay. But no, Anne Lamott reminded me that is not at all true. :)
I have never been one to write official drafts...my writing tends to just evolve from a rough sketch of my ideas to a (hopefully) complete work, typically all in one sitting. I have not never thought about writing out everything that I can think of, everything that I can turn from thoughts into text, and cut and paste that into an acknowledged "shitty first draft." If I did things that way, I could allow myself a transition from nothing to anything, and then from anything to something, and then from something to meaning. Accepting imperfection in my writing is a novel idea to me, and I think that is going to allow me to be much more at ease and flexible as I sit down to write my first "shitty first draft" for tomorrow's homework. I think my writing will improve by employing this transitional approach, and I think I will use this technique for future writing projects.